@n1ck - if he sells it, can it really be called an alpha? To me alpha is the first phase of testing, usually amongst friends and familly. Once you start charging people for it and giving access to anyone who pays that's a released product.

@n1ck - I've never played minecraft and haven't dos'ed anyone in my life. I'm glad that one guys game can be such a huge success and I'm as much against kids that feel entitled to anything as any sane person, but as someone who's starting his career in software development I'm against charging people for participation in alpha or beta testing - it's something you usually need to pay others to do for you. Can you imagine Blizzard charging people for participating in the beta and what outcome it would have? Instead of good feedback you get angry kids.

@Oscar well you can either say that Blizz is not charging WoW subscribers anything for the beta, or that it charges all of us, depending on how cynical you are. I don't know anyone who subscribed to WoW just to participate in the beta.

I'm not sure exactly how you mean. In order to play the WoW beta, you have to pay for it. And as a matter of fact, this doesn't lead to angry kids. Quite the contrary, those "kids" are overcome with joy if they are given the opportunity to participate.

Basically, there's no cheating going on here on the developer's side. He's created a game, he tells everyone it's unfinished, he let's everyone try it, then he offers them more features by paying a relatively modest amount. Not a bad deal.

Also, note the terms he put up: paying 10 euros will get you access to the full game as it is now and all updates at any point in the future. The full release price is set at 20 euros. So if you dislike the whole paying-for-alpha deal, consider it a 50% pre-order discount.

Anyway, here's my prediction of the day: if Notch actually stops releasing more updates now that he's made himself such a handsome pile of cash, much of the support he receives now will erode very quickly :)